‘Lieutenant,’ Nigel’s urbane ’path resonated inside Slvasta’s head. ‘Always a pleasure. But I must insist you stop. In fact, you need to turn round.’

‘Fuck you, Faller!’ Slvasta shouted in glorious defiance. Behind him, the regiment was flowing forwards, horses starting their final gallop as they gathered momentum down the slope.

‘Son, you’re going to get yourself hurt. The blast when my starship takes off is going to be lethal within a kilometre. Please stop.’

‘Liar. I will burn you from our world. I will kill all of you.’ Fields rushed past in a blur. He’d never been more alive, more determined. Never more right.

‘Oh for crud’s sake, you dumbass fanatic. Turn round. Now. Last warning.’

Slvasta yelled wordlessly and tugged the carbine from its saddle holster. The horse was jolting him about so much it was difficult to hold it steady on the flying machine.

‘Oh, no, you don’t,’ Nigel ’pathed.

Slvasta just caught sight of a large chunk of flesh and bone tearing out of his horse’s head where the bullet struck. Then the animal was collapsing, tumbling forward in a crazy broken cartwheel. He was flung out of the saddle, flailing through the air to land with an almighty, rib-breaking thump on the stone road, momentum skidding him along, skin ripping. Then rolling, rolling, rolling, with pain buffeting him from every nerve he possessed.

‘Ten, nine, eight . . .’

One last flip and he was still. Staring up at the clear evening sky with its emerging nebulas glimmering faintly. Too dazed even to move.

‘. . . four, three . . .’

The aether boiled with frantic ’paths as the regiment tried to stop their breakneck charge.

‘Slvasta!’ Bethaneve cried.

‘. . . one, zero. Ignition! Oh, hell, but I’m good!’

Slvasta saw a searingly bright orange flash coming from the base of the flying machine’s cylinders. An explosion, he knew. And he snarled in triumph. The Faller contraption had failed and blown up. Then, as he turned his neck so he could get a better look at Nigel’s destruction, the light dimmed slightly as a phenomenal cloud of steam erupted from the pond. It shot across the ground at a speed he couldn’t even follow, smothering everything in its path and soaring upwards in vast exuberant billows. Strangest of all, it made no sound.

The glaring light returned, shining through the racing cloud, climbing vertically and growing brighter as it did so. That was when the sound hit with the force of a hurricane. It lifted Slvasta from the road and dashed him against the hedge. Despite his strongest shell, its roar shook his very bones, threatening to rattle every joint apart with its vehemence. He screamed as the vibrations hammered into his organs.

A dazzling topaz light burst from the top of the furious steam cloud, five massive flames spearing down from the base of the cylinders, slamming out solid columns of smoke below them. ‘Is this the quantumbuster?’ he pleaded feebly. The flying machine was racing up faster and faster now, its terrible flames surely splitting the sky in half with their power. Is this how the world ends?

The edge of the steam cloud slammed into him. Unbearable heat adding to his agony. He lost consciousness.

*

Kysandra saw the brilliant ignition flash. Then steam hurtled out from the blast pool, engulfing the solid rocket boosters for a long moment. Even from her safe distance, the violence of the event was awesome. Skylady rose in splendid serenity from the elemental chaos, slicing upwards in a smooth curve, trailing fire, smoke and thunder in its wake.

‘She’s up!’ Kysandra cried exultantly. Her feet wouldn’t keep still, her arms flapped as if she was trying to take off in the starship’s wake. Heart racing. Jaw open in magnificent astonishment.

Skylady continued her flawless climb.

‘I love you, Nigel,’ Kysandra shouted. ‘I’ve always loved you.’ By now she was craning her neck to keep track of the painfully bright spectacle. Skylady was so high – ten kilometres at least.

Then there was an almighty burst of smoke, and the five spikes of flame died. Kysandra screamed.

‘Separation!’ Fergus assured her.

A new, single plume of flame stabbed downwards. And the five dead boosters shrugged away from it, still trailing thin tendrils of smoke, arching back towards the ground like a flower nebula’s petals opening.

Skylady was accelerating hard now on its remaining solid rocket booster, rising out of the atmosphere, its smoke exhaust expanding wide as it reached the zenith of the sky. Kysandra watched it go, tears flowing freely down her cheeks. ‘Goodbye, Nigel. But I will find you again, wherever you are.’

*

Pain meant Slvasta was alive. He hadn’t known pain this extreme since the day Quanda had captured him. A pitiful whimper escaped his mouth as he tried to move. Even the slightest motion amplified the pain. His ex-sight probed round weakly, discerning a man looming over him.

‘Ah, prime minister. Glad to see you survived.’

‘Ingmar?’ Slvasta croaked.

‘Unfortunately for you, no.’

Slvasta forced his eyes open. A thin grey mist swirled energetically across the valley, the remnants of the flying machine’s mercurial steam cloud. It was Captain Philious looking down at him, a standard regiment-issue carbine held casually in one hand.

‘What happened?’ Slvasta asked.

‘The machine people flew away. It was incredibly impressive.’

‘Faller bastards. What are they going to do?’

‘No, Slvasta,’ Captain Philious said with a sigh of genuine disappointment. ‘They weren’t Fallers. And I suspect they’ll try and detonate the quantumbuster in the Forest. We’ll be liberated from the Fallers. Won’t that be something?’

‘We have to stop them!’

‘No, we don’t. They really do seem to know what they’re doing.’ Captain Philious flicked off the carbine’s safety catch.

Slvasta gazed up in disbelief. ‘But, our agreement, the new parliament . . .’

‘Oh, absolutely,’ Captain Philious mocked. ‘That’s how my family maintained its position for three thousand years.’ He pointed the carbine down at Slvasta, and pulled the trigger.

*

Five hundred metres back up the slope, Bethaneve heard the burst of gunfire and swivelled round. Just in time to see Slvasta’s body torn apart by the full magazine of bullets Captain Philious emptied into him. Her mouth parted into a desperate O, and her already shaky legs gave out, dropping her to her knees.

She thought she might faint. Most of the regiment’s horses had run amok at the flying machine’s launch. Hers had bolted with the rest, then reared up, sending her toppling from its saddle. She’d stayed curled up in a ball with her tightest shell spun around her as the horses rampaged past and the steam streaked over her. Pain, shock and misery kept her in that position for an unknown time. When the worst of it was over, and the astonishing machine was disappearing into the twilight sky, she threw up. After that, she couldn’t stop shaking.

Captain Philious slapped another magazine into his carbine and began ’pathing orders to nearby regiment troopers, calling them to him and instructing them to search out Slvasta’s bodyguards. Bethaneve’s shakes returned. Slvasta was dead. Dead! Her love. Her soulmate. Already on his way to Giu. All was lost.

‘I’ll join you in the Heart,’ she whispered. Probably quite soon.

It was too much to take in, too much to think about. She closed her eyes and tightened her shell again, withdrawing from the world.

‘You can’t stay here.’

Bethaneve stared up fearfully. She didn’t recognize the young man standing next to her. He wore a strange one-piece garment that was an elusive grey colour; he carried one of the sniper rifles Nigel had supplied to the cells. ‘Who are you?’ she croaked.

‘Demitri. I was grown in the same batch as Coulan.’